Preventing disease transmission on aircraft has conventionally focused on improvements of the air-conditioning/filtration systems. Recent research has suggested that one way to further improve disease prevention on aircraft and spacecraft can include surface contamination treatment, e.g. on surfaces of the aircraft. However, while some antimicrobial compounds have been produced for antibacterial applications, no compound has been demonstrated specifically for anti-viral applications. For antiviral compounds, the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries use proteins and small molecules (e.g., molecular weight less than 1,000) to target microbes. However, proteins and small molecules have limited systemic half-lives and, in turn, typically involve higher dosages than is desired.
Furthermore, hydrophobic binding of existing antimicrobial materials requires long dehydration times before being effective such that a considerable amount of microbe transmission occurs during the dehydration, such that antimicrobial activity is not efficacious against strong microbes (such as Escherichia coli (E. Coli)).
Therefore, there is a need for antimicrobial compounds and nanostructures capable of further functionalization and antimicrobial activity against strong microbes (such as E. Coli), compositions including the compounds and nanostructures, and methods useful for antimicrobial and/or antiviral applications using the compounds, nanostructures, and compositions.